hope you're wearing your best clothes (turns out it is your pants)
by ayebydan
Summary: Harry Potter does not think the corpse of Severus Snape should be left to rot away. While others cry into shoulders after the final battle Harry needs to get away and fetching Snape's body is something to do. The trouble is, the body is still breathing and Harry has no idea what to do next.


This was written for a Snape_Potter fest that I took part in on dreamwidth. I picked up a song lyric prompt and decided to use 'sign of the times' by harry styles of which I make no profit nor claim to own in any way. Sadly I also do not own Harry Potter as if I did I would both own my own place and have an army of lhasa apso dogs rather than just my boy. It was betad over by a friend and then again by the fest team so shout out to them for their work. Deffo a pre-slash if anything. I am rather proud of this one even though I am not entirely sure where it came from. Funny how that happens. Enjoy! ayebydan

_Just stop your crying_

_It's a sign of the times_

_Welcome to the final show_

_Hope you're wearing your best clothes_

_You can't bribe the door on your way to the sky_

_You look pretty good down here_

_But you ain't really good_

sign of the times - harry styles -

When Tom is dead, and confirmed dead, and his followers are fled or caged or worse, only then does Harry lower his wand and allow others to take over. His first thought is his old dorm but then he feels his body stop.

Snape.

_Snape_

He sighs and passes by everyone as he makes his way out. No doubt they expect their hero to look different. If they had ever read anything Rita had written, he is meant to be a good foot taller, if not more. His chest should be fuller and he should be more...well, just _more._ It easy to slip past them all and head for the lake. Stragglers continue to stumble towards the entrance doors of the Castle and Harry takes them all in one by one. Friend or foe does not matter anymore. Not for today, anyway. Lucius Malfoy is still clinging to his family on the benches of the Great Hall but that is not going to stop Shacklebolt arresting him as soon as his own skull has been knitted back together. More than that, though, Harry simply does not care if any of the rags that are masquerading as human beings launch an assault on him now. Harry had truly expected to stay dead on the forest floor. There is no plan for now, for after, and he knows the shadow that was the sad life of Tom Marvolo Riddle is gone.

Snape being his focus is odd at first but then, as he traipses across the scorched earth and takes time now and then to put our fires and help random people to their feet, it makes more sense. From the moment he entered Hogwarts Severus Snape has been part of his personal orbit. Whether for good or bad most of the most important moments of Harry's life have been connected with Severus Snape and that had taken on a whole other meaning only a couple of hours ago.

Harry does not think Severus Snape is a good person and does not think any memories will ever make him think that but his heart makes his feet move forward and he trusts that enough. For all the names he has been called over the years, Harry likes to think he carries himself with a healthy dose of respect for those who deserve it. Severus Snape just does not deserve to rot away in an old shack without a proper send-off.

The area near the old willow tree is empty of life. No one wanted to fight a battle there. It makes Harry's journey into the tunnels easier and he has just about put together the list of spells he will need to move the body together in his mind when he pushes what is left of the old door aside and enters the room he had last seen Snape in.

Merlin. Fuck. Jesus. Shit," Harry sputters one after the other. The fucking body is breathing .

_Well. _ That changes everything.

His knees make a horribly loud sound as they hit the woodwork, Harry dragging his body towards the other with clawing fingers and a gaping mouth.

"Snape?! _Severus?!_ Can you hear me?"

Eyelids flutter but don't open. Clawing at Snape's robes, Harry pulls them open and down around his torso so he can get a good look at the snake bites that are still oozing a clear liquid. The pale skin of Snape's chest is covered in old scars but there is no sign of any other damage that Hermione might have missed earlier in her attempts to heal him.

Desperately trying to remember, Harry pieces together what the trio used before. None of it should have been enough. None of it makes sense. Knowing he is utterly unprepared for this sort of situation, Harry stumbles back to his feet and pulls the Elder Wand from his back pocket. Wait. Furious with himself Harry begins casting healing spells but the power of the wand is not enough. He returns to his original plan.

"_Expecto Patronum_! Hermione, I don't feel well. Meet me at Pad's flat."

The stag seems to stare through Harry for the longest time before it turns and disappears through the walls of the shack. Harry is not sure that Hermione will make any sense of it or even if Snape has time for her not to.

As he waits on Hermione, Harry sets about propping up Snape on his knees and then conjuring a cloth to wipe his face and neck. The body reacts to his touch but shows no sign of regaining consciousness. Harry can feel himself start to panic once more, when Hermione bursts into the room. She gasps and her eyes bulge as she takes in the sights before her. When she covers her mouth with her hand, Harry winces because it is still covered in blood and he is torn between not wanting it to be hers and dreading it being someone else's that they love.

"He-he can't be."

"He is," Harry replies grimly, "And I have no bloody idea what to do about it."

Stumbling forward, as Harry had before, Hermione drops to her knees and pulls out her wand before casting various spells over Snape's body.

"I have no idea why he is still breathing but...I know for sure that we can't take him up to the Castle. No, Harry, listen! I know he turned out to be on our side but people are not going to wait long enough to listen to that. We need to get him somewhere safe and soon."

"Like where?!"

She stares at him blankly.

HPSS

Shell cottage has turned out to be invaluable during the war, without a doubt. When Hermione had finally breathed out Fleur's name in the shack, Harry wondered if the day's events had just become too much for her but once she had it in her mind, a determined explanation had followed. Fleur was a Triwizard champion and, unlike Harry, she was actually trained and prepared to be so. Unlike those at Hogwarts, students at the other two schools had known for over a year what was coming and had endlessly trained in the hopes that they might be chosen to represent their institution. Healing had been one of the top things to train for. Someone who can stay in the game can still win it after all.

Harry had been the one to run up to the Castle and find her in Gryffindor tower of all places. Fred's body had been moved to the third year boy's dorms and the Weasleys were to take it over as their own until things were more settled and people felt ready to leave the safety of the Castle. Even those who had turned up alone from lives they lived in solitude did not feel ready to leave the old walls just yet.

Bill was a problem Harry had thought over on his way up but he feels confident he can handle them both when he gestures for a word with them in the hallway between the fourth and third year entrances.

"I need Fleur's help and perhaps the use of your house again. Someone...someone needs help that can't be seen here."

"Why Fleur?" Bill begins quietly as they both watch Harry with curious looks on their faces.

"I need a Healer and I can't take away any of the trained ones for this. I know Fleur has the skills to help me, that she will keep my counsel and she knows how to avoid drawing attention to herself," Harry says.

"I'm flattered at your opinion of me, 'Arry, but I must know who eet is or I cannot, in good conscience, give my 'elp so freely."

Okay, Harry can handle this moment. Bill is the calmest of the Weasleys. Or at least he is the calmest of the Weasleys that Harry knows of. No one seems to know much about Charlie other than that he likes dragons more than people, which is weird and probably something Harry should come back to at some point.

"It is Snape. He survived Voldemort's attempt to kill him. He was on our side the whole time, and I know that will seem pretty hard to believe right now, but I've seen memories and just...I know I am asking a lot, too much. But I don't know of anyone else in a position to help me right now."

Bill's cheeks have turned a furious red, which makes his scars stand out on his face, making him look far more intimidating than he usually does. Fleur's face gives nothing away. It never does unless she wants it to. Years of being judged on her looks mean her appearance is something she has a tight hold over at all times.

"You never judged me like ze ozzers. You 'ave always been a good friend, a good brozzer. I will 'elp you now."

"Fleur!"

"Eet is my choice, William. Please respect it," she implores while turning to take her husband's hands in her smaller ones. He gnaws at his lips but nods and bends to kiss her lightly on the forehead. "Go to ze Burrow with ze family when you are ready. Tell them I am 'elping 'Arry. I don't think they will ave so many questions now. And take care of yourself, my love. Fred will never be far from our thoughts. My brozzer. Ze joker. We will return as soon as we can."

Harry gives a sigh of relief and is shocked when Bill releases his wife only to grab Harry roughly around the shoulders and pull him into an embrace. "I thought I lost you today. Losing one brother is hard enough. The thought of losing two...it would have been unbearable. Look after yourselves. Snape...he is dangerous on his best days. Our side or not. Be careful."

"I will. Hermione is with him now. I'll send her up."

"Ok. Keep the Floo off and the wards up. I'll send word when we leave the Castle and of...of the funeral," he says his voice cracking. Harry allows Fleur to take his place and turns to offer them privacy. After a few moments, a wet-faced Fleur joins him at his elbow and gestures for him to lead on.

HPSS

Harry may have fought a war but he is still only seventeen. It is weird and slightly amusing for him and Hermione to strip their former Potions professor down to his y-fronts in the spare bedroom of Shell Cottage. He swears he hears Hermione let out a hysterical giggle at one point but when he looks again she is calm. No amount of arguing had her returning to the Castle until she knew that Snape was stable, and Fleur needed her own home for that. Harry had been paranoid that someone was going to end up Splinched, again, but within the hour Fleur's wand is hovering over sickly pallid skin as she murmurs various incantations while the two teens keep watch.

"Stable. Now go, 'Ermione. Better for us all if you return to ze Castle."

"She's right," Harry says, shoving Hermione's foot gently with his own.

"I know. It is just that, we have been through so much together and I never, well I-"

"You never left. And I will be eternally grateful but it is okay. Ron needs you now. Mrs Weasley. Ginny. I am okay here."

It takes her a further fifteen minutes to finally leave the cottage to walk to the sandy hill where she can Disapparate but she goes eventually, leaving Harry to take a seat by Snape's bedside and watch Fleur work. Sometime she gives instructions for Harry to fetch various clothes, wraps or potions from places around the home and other times she works in silence. Both are still covered in filth from the battle. Eventually Harry makes his way towards the kitchen and takes stock of the supplies. Ten minutes after that he has a large pot of soup started and takes a large plate of sandwiches, crackers and various other things into the bedroom to keep them going.

When she does stop casting and wrapping and fussing, Fleur doesn't leave. She just drags a chair in from another room and sit down beside Harry, wand always on her lap, alert at all times.

"Tell me what you need to, 'Arry."

So he does. The graves. The snake. The torture. The dragon. All of it.

She listens.

HPSS

Severus Snape wakes at three am in darkness, aside from the cautious purple light at the end of one wand and red on another. Still gasping for air, he sees the world come back into light and focus, and that world be a small bedroom filled with Fleur Weasley and Harry Potter himself.

"Calm down, Snape. You are safe here, but you are hurt. Try to stay still."

"_Insolent whelp_!" Snape snarls towards Harry, who lowers his wand with a roll of his eyes.

"Yeah, he is fine."

"I thought I-"

"Was dead? Me too. I went to get your body so I could bury you and got a right shock. Luckily, Fleur here was on hand to save your ungrateful arse, so maybe try not being a dick and we can go from there, eh?"

Harry leaves the room with that. Even the sound of Snape's voice makes him want to set things on fire.

On their side or not, he's still a git.

HPSS

Fleur hears Snape making a noise around lunchtime and makes Harry take him soup. Harry grumbles but his sister, because apparently he is a Weasley now, points out she doesn't really know Snape and sends him on his way.

His infected and bloodied clothes destroyed, Snape has remained confined to his bed, shuffling under the covers for his dignity. With no wand, he is not too much of a danger, Harry likes to think, but he has his wand on him nonetheless.

"Vegetable soup and bread. I made the soup yesterday. Not sure how old the bread is but should be ok for dunking and stuff," Harry says as he places a tray on the lap of his old professor, not yet sure how strong the other man's hands are.

"Thank you, Potter. I assume I am in an Order safe house?"

Harry smiles and settles himself into the same seat he had used to keep watch the night before. "It was not meant to be one, but yes. Bill and Fleur's. Fleur was the one who saved you. Hermione and I had no idea what to do. We had already tried everything we knew and thought you were dead."

"My gratitude then to the young Mrs Weasley."

Harry shrugs. "You can tell her that yourself later when she checks all your...," he waves his hand in the general direction of the other man, "things."

"Eloquent as always."

"Funny, I never felt the need to talk fancy to beat Voldemort."

Snape chokes on his soup. Harry is oddly satisfied.

So he is dead?"

"All his trinkets, me included."

Severus Snape's eyes widen as he looks over the teen in front of him. His spoon clinks as he drops it back onto the tray, forgotten. It seems things are finally taking hold for the older man.

"Yet you stand before me."

"You always knew I tended to find a way out of things I never had any right to."

"Potter. _Harry_. This is far different."

"Nah, not really. Voldemort tries to kill me. I have no right to live. Something weird happens. I continue on. Familiar enough to me," Harry says with a grin that does not quite meet his eyes.

Snape seems to understand.

"Your skills at soup outstrip your skills at potions."

Harry smiles.

HPSS

Fleur leaves that night with instructions for Harry on how to continue Snape's progress.

On the fourth day of Harry aiding Snape to the bathroom and back in the y-fronts that he charms clean each day, he begins to think about clothes. He waits until Snape has his morning tea in hand before shifting his chair from the bottom to the side of the bed and having at it.

"So, you can't sit in your pants forever even if you are in this makeshift infirmary. So, I figured if I sent a message to Hermione she could get into your office at Hogwarts and get you some clothes."

The resulting shouting match goes past lunch but by seven pm Hermione has left a bag at the outer rim of the wards which Harry slips out to snag and gives most of to a still irate Snape.

As punishment, Harry decides not to share any of the treacle tarts.

HPSS

It still takes Snape over twelve hours to thank him for the clothes and another two after that to request a cup of tea. Just one sugar. A biscuit if there is one.

That is the conversation where Harry explains everything and Snape tries to justify the memories while Harry insists that there is no need to. It will not change anything. Harry has spent far too many years filled with a rage that partially was not his and the rest fuelled by the strains no teen should endure. If possible, when possible, he just wants to put it all behind him now.

HPSS

"Don't you have places that you need to be, Potter? Or are you avoiding responsibilities as usual?" Snape drawls one afternoon when Harry has taken him a cup of tea and a random book.

"Don't you wonder why you have no friends?" Harry returns calmly while setting the things down before adding on, "If you had paid the slightest bit of attention over the years, then you would know that I hate attention. I never wanted to be a hero. I certainly don't want to be in the limelight. So you're stuck with me."

"And Granger and the new Mrs Weasley are my gatekeepers?"

"Well, they will be if you don't get nicer," Harry mutters while going to read a book of his own. It is another children's book, but most of Fleur's are in French, and those in English are frankly too complex for him for him to deal with right now.

Harry and Severus settle into an odd stalemate.

HPSS

Harry places himself under Severus, basically, and leads him to the main room and the sofa. It is not much but Severus seems to appreciate the change of scenery. It does not bother Harry. He cautiously watches him over the rim of his book in one corner as the fire cracks in the other.

"Tell me if it gets too hot."

"I am fine, Potter."

"Right."

It seems that Severus is far less inclined to silence than Harry previously thought, because it is he who begins to make the advances towards something of a cordial friendship. Harry had been happy to read. First the children's books he had found in various rooms and then more. Much more. Bill has a seemingly endless supply of books on warding and, if there is something Harry is sure of, it is that he wants to feel safe. He wants the sort of protection that number twelve had afforded them over the years but absolutely wants nothing to do with number twelve itself.

"Wards?"

"Huh?"

"You're reading about wards," Snape continues, "And ...if it is not a bother, may I have a glass of cold water?"

Harry rises to get him water and, upon noticing the time, throws together a tuna-based salad for them both while he is on his feet. Kreacher has taken to popping in now and then and leaves meals stacked in tubs marked with the Black crest but under elf magic stasis charms. Harry knows where his bread is buttered and accepts it with thanks.

He is well aware that Snape has noticed the insignias.

Once they are both fed and watered once more, Harry goes back to his book but Snape...well, he all but fidgets before turning to Harry once more,

"You never did explain why you are reading about wards."

"I don't have to explain. But I want to feel safe. I just want a house where no one can find me unless I want them to. I want the people who are important to me to be safe. Bill works with this sort of thing, so I thought it was a good place to start. I cannot rely on Hermione to do my reading forever," he mutters.

"Your godfath-"

"I don't want to live there."

"I see."

A moment. Then, Harry hears shuffling on the couch and hears a sigh.

"Do you think, P- Harry. Do you think we might have a bottle of wine between us this evening? You are not a child and I grow tired of my predicament. If there is also a way to find out when I will need to leave, then I would be grateful," Snape states. It sounds as though he is swallowing his pride. He probably is, so Harry tries to act properly in return.

"Fleur said we can have anything here, booze included. I think she expected me to drown my sorrows in all honesty. You don't need to leave until you are well. Fleur will come to check your wounds tomorrow evening. Bill and Fleur are at the Burrow and...no one wants to leave there any time soon. We have time here," Harry comments, loudly and with confidence at first but with sorrow by the end.

Snape peers across the room. "They lost someone."

"Fred. They are not taking it well."

"I expect not," Snape says before falling silent for a few minutes. It surprises Harry when he talks once more. "He was always gifted in my classroom. Just unfocused. That can be dangerous. You know yourself. Longbottom concentrated as best he could and was still a danger. To not pay attention to potions can be deadly. But...Mr Weasley had talent."

"Look, Snape-"

"Severus," the other man mutters quietly while staring at his cup. "If anyone has earned the right it is you. Most presume. You saved my life, brought me here, and yet never did."

Harry mulls that over. "Severus. Right. I didn't think you wanted to know about the deaths on our side. You were ...emotional the other day."

Severus flinches and he nods before sitting back in the chair. "True. It is a lot to take in. I needed to know that the dangers were gone. Nott. Jugson. Greyback."

"And now?"

Severus sighs and nods before reaching a hand out towards Harry. "If you say that the young Mrs Weasley is willing, then perhaps a bottle of wine and answers is a good use of this afternoon, Harry."

_Harry_

The book is set aside and Harry throws another fat log into the fire to keep it burning, while at the same time throwing an old issue of the _Prophet_ in to heat it up. As the flames settle, he makes his way to the kitchen and finds a bottle of red wine. Did his Aunt Petunia not always say that went with cheese? Crackers? Olives maybe.

They have nowhere to be any time soon, so Harry throws together a platter from what he can find and then, after several failed attempts, he takes the bottle, an opener and two glasses to the sofa Severus is propped up on.

"I have never opened wine. I assume you have some fancy spell."

The smile he receives is odd but somehow assuring after everything else, "Such charms exist but the Muggle way lets it breathe and that is better in a red. Advice I got from your mother after we smuggled a bottle to the moors near our homes as fourteen-year-olds."

"Will you tell me about it?"

"I don't see how I can have anything better to do. I failed to die. Nothing but time for me," Severus drawls as Harry steps over his outstretched legs and settles beside him. Severus makes to open the wine while Harry settles the platter on the table.

"I didn't help just to have you talk about my mother," Harry says suddenly after freezing. No. He did it because it was the right thing. And he knows Severus now. Knows the man he became and not the one he was. He feels a touch at his arm.

"I'm aware, Harry. Pass the glasses. Don't drop them like a dolt."

Harry rolls his eyes, "Yes, sir."


End file.
